Takes place at the same time as the previous novel, but with different characters.In South Dalemark, after their landlord conspires to throw his family off their farm, a boy named Mitt must struggle to fit into town life, as his mother works hard (but uses her money spendthrift-ly) and his father gets involved in an illegal revolutionary movement.When the political group is betrayed, Mitt, with the encouragement of his mother, devotes himself to becoming a double agent – involved with his father's group, but secretly bent on betraying those inside the group that he believes sold out his father. His allegiances are difficult, as one of those men treats him like a son, and in addition, his stepfather seems to offer him a respectable, straight-and-narrow path. But Mitt is obsessed with his plan to blow up the Earl during the festival of Ammet and to blame his radical compatriots for the crime.But nothing turns out quite the way he planned, and Mitt finds himself on a sea voyage with two rich kids, and with the involvement of two pagan/folk-type supernatural figures, Ammett himself and the fertility goddess(?) Libby Beer, Mitt will have to grow, face some truths, and make some hard decisions about his path. ( )

Diana Wynne Jones doesn't make the worldbuilding too easy to follow. I remember reading in her collected non-fiction writings that she found that children made the leaps her books require much more easily than adults do. So I try to think like a child when I read her work (it sort of pleases me, the way people are often so snobby about children "not understanding" adult literature -- which I did, on some level at least, from the age of nine -- that perhaps this is something children understand better, and not because it's infantile in any way: it just requires flexibility of brain). Sometimes it still jars -- like the scene in the storm where suddenly another two people join the ship.

There's still something so different about this book to the other books of Jones' that I can think of. Normally they feel so light, or they make light of bad situations, but the tyranny and terrorism and betrayal in this story just... It has a darker feel, even when it's still handled pretty lightly at times. ( )

It's an interesting look at the attraction of bucking the system and the consequences of doing it. While Mitt is young, he's also ambitious and society is constructed in such a way as to keep him down, all he can do is try to fight the system that is around him and he gets sucked into violence.

It's an interesting story, mostly about how easy it is to pull a trigger but much harder to deal with the aftermath. The ripples from what Mitt does cascade from him and his life will never be the same again. It's subtle and the magic is minimal but it's an interesting read. ( )

Wikipedia in English (1)

Drowned Ammet is the story of Mitt, a boy who joins a band of Freedom Fighters in a bid to try and crush the tyrranical ruler of Holand, and at the same time, to get revenge on the people who killed his father. BLDiana Wynne Jones is recognized as being one of the most outstanding writers of fantasy in recent times. BLThe Dalemark Quartet books are for good readers who have enjoyed the Christopher Chant books by the same author. The books contain the same ability to immerse the reader with real child characters having magical adventures in an imaginary world. BLThis genre of fantasy writing is currently very popular due to the success of the recent 'Lord of the Rings' film. BLDiana Wynne Jones has won the Guardian award for fiction and has written over twenty novels in less than twenty years.

When his protest against the tyrannical government fails, a young boy escapes, with two other children, to the mysterious Holy Islands where they learn the identity and the power of two folk figures celebrated by their countrymen.